New Britain Herald Newspaper, July 7, 1926, Page 14

and | up. herself on ed sleepil where he stood, empty against the she vawr she said to herself laz And then see the Man in the ( U again today. I hope I do.” She smiled up at the ceiling with her clear green eye gave a long soft sigh. She was smiling 10 minutes later when the door opened and Jinny came in, fresh from her bat Jinny was slim and wiry and red-headed. With he short hair and skin, Jinny look fresh-faced boy. There nothing girly-girly about her, at the sensible age of 15. She was as hard and bright and gharp as new nails “Hello, Merry Happy birthday!” she greeted her older sister, “what are vou snickering to yourself about? Got a new man on your brain, T'll bet a hat!” Merry laughed as she got out of bed and stuck her bare feet into a pair of old knitted slippers. She morning that see the blighting Jinny gave her. “You should just see him, Jin!" she bubbled. “He's the best looking thing leather. He passes me on the street every day when I go out for my lunch, and he just Jooks a hole through me! Jim- iny, but I hope I see him this noon!” Jinny sat down on the floor and began to pull on her black cotton stockings. “Thank heaven 1 haven't reached the man-crazy age, that's all,” she said fervently, as if she were talking to herself. Merry didn’t bother to an- swer her. She was standing before the toilet table now, turning her head first to the left and then to the right. “I think my hair washing,” she murmured in an undertone and disappeared into the bath room with a bottle of shampoo in one hand and a dried-up half of a lemon in the other. “I want to look \ nice, today. was so happy this he didn't even look that in shoe needs This was not the first time that Merry Lock ad had a man “on the brain,” as Jinny called it. She was not ¢ old the first tir love. It was that first time, of course. Only a silly boy-and-girl af- fair. The boy was not er than Merr) the time His name cell, and high school hero. For not only capta ball team, but he owned a Ford i only puppy n of the actuall roadster, be- foot considered hei self very t best girl. SI wondered of her g matched, laug flec v were blended wit her hair and of her skin, something about A daffodil hing given the Ann by She wasn'’t think Good So she said to | th her lips again his, “I ou.’ £ didn't of course. She wasn't in love t all. What she in love with was the made love with him was way he : hree years ago, and Mérry had forgotten even what Lester looked 1 now. He was just a name to her— ‘Lester Purcell, the boy who ever kissed me.” That the v thought about him. The only t! that she that first k was she ing about him forget was s of his, it was he one and only t that less, heart-pounding moment when his arms w2nt around her and his mouth come down hard upon hers in the chil night. 0 woman ever for her 1d Merry had not didn of times s many 5 petting part ¢ a swimmir a picnic—to Me Love-making ed fresh and n every kiss like first kiss The tingling of excitement along her nerves, the blood singing in her veins—thest were part of the joy of be- ing alive. to her— e HELEN LOCKI last night Derrick lived t door, * as they couch apple tree ir ew moon or , perhaps, m. adful part of , be he had been hold- 10t of Der Man in the and ns ban nels of t Mary Ar are vou doin a1l this tir tling the e?" she ¢ at- doorknob angrily, NEW BRITAIN DAILY HERALD, WEDNESDAY, JULY 7, 1926. "%%%@r@%%%%%%%? BRERH B8 The Petter By BEATRICE BURTON, Author of “Love Bound”, “Her Man” Tllustrated and Copyrighted by Johnson Features, Inc., 1819 Broadway, New York City £ 5 5 0 S B S B R R A PR B 0 S AR SR AR S R SHE WOULD SET THINKING ABOUT H “don't you realiz quarter past going to be late clare, 1 don't kno vou to busir eigh sending “I don’t know either,” ry returned, under breath. She threw a Turkish towel over her head to shut out the sound of her mother’s voice, and | rub her wet he She can to r briskly ted to go to business college, as a matter of fact. She broke all her pointed, shiny nails on the typewriter keys, and the very thought of writing shorthand all her lifc made her head ache. But then, she had something for a living, supposed. And it was far, better to work in an office than to be a school teacher or a librarian, or a saleswoman in a department store. In an office a girl had a chance to meet men. Clec cut men like the Man in the Gray Suit—the man she had met every day for a week among the noontide crowds of Walpole street. At the very thought of him Merry’s heart leaped and she began to hurry with her would see him 1igain—in just a few hours. to do dressir She It was a quarter to nine be she walked into the itchen of the shabby old house where she had lived all her life. hair was shining like pun gold, and she was as S a S¢ ng y ht in clean linen dress and brown kid “Here flakes fore comes our soap- beauty !"” Helen, who was the oldest of the Locke girl iiled her as she open ed the door and sat down at the table with its shining white cloth and bubbling per- colator. Helen wa sister. The family. She wa 1 -at-home nderella of the the only one of the four Locke not pretty. S and colorful like te like boyish s had none of the ¢ tvle of Cassie, the oldest, ters * wa second nd looked as if hour alone wit doctor. Helen had ng as a bad tled down rather h Y to help of the house ago st jobs had a Helen o did the enor ironing, cleaned to pooi mous weekl, TOUCH ¢ her a chance to a breath of he met all her fresh a friend There's no sugar bowl, Helen!” Mer harply as she poured | a cup of coffee and the percolator. Without a word Hel lv wiped her on her apron sugar bowl. Wi down before her young ter, she laid a littlc tissue-paper package cloth beside it “Many happy ur birthday, ) aid in a slow Helen's voice cet Fairly wckage, felt finger-tips, a to untie the t bound bet 1 can gue a sachet to andkerchief I laughed as s Her face fel s nothine can be, but 1‘!\) (e proppec the morning paper up ac t our cplained, pt pain- skin, “1 ou. You don't ile a dull blush ¢ too plain to be s not at I sateen at 1t her r down at the G 1 Bu chool of Business. ewrite pev ove you for ms: it aid, tak- her s large nds in hers, “but what on earth would I do with a duster—or with a hope- chest either Helen dr and and walk k to the sink. > picked up the butcher 1 we on slicing for a wite or two before she ed. “Why, I suppose yvou'll get arried some day—just as we to,” she said then in awling voice of hers, vou'll need a dust-cloth , I've no doubt.” NnooK n away d b shining She folded up en, and turn- 1 chair so that the full for it she was going to say. t me tell you somethin little voice w bright as plate- wouldn't marry the man on earth if I had I've seen too > with Dad rself ( ny fellow asks him, I'm going to ¢ive him the air! I'm going to tell him to go wrap himself 1p in the atmosphere! And it won't take me long to do it, ther!” best Helen frowned thoughtful- nag Dad vly, “but along pretty well, ame. And let me ask ng. If vou don’t 1, why did they get ust the t married, ick Jones kiss you t out in the swing?” “He didn’t,” Merry fibbed Helen shrugged her square houlders. “I saw him do it,” inswered bluntly, and had the grace to blush. I, what if he did?” »d, not meeting her hone gray eyes, 1t’s nothing. He's been do- 2 it off and on for the last of years. It doesn't mean anything.” ‘Then you shouldn't let him do it, began Helen, “if ou don't care about him, it’s horrid to—" “Oh, stop talking like a Bible class!” Merry flamed out at her, suddenly. “You've been a perfect lady all your R B PO B8 R o e P B B B B life, and where have vou got? No farther than the kitchen sink! You've listened to Moms’ old-fashioned ideas about getting yourself en gaged to a man before you let him hold your hand fo twenty-six years, and what have they done for you! Nothing! Absolutely Noth ing!” “Is that so?” “Why, of course Merry answered “You're buried house, that , it's so! shrill.y alive in this and you're so dead vou don't know it! What happened to that guy who used to come to see you, four or five years ago? I can't think of his name—" “Charlie Harper,” Heler broke in quietly. “He's living somewlhere up in Canada—up in Manitoba. I used to hear from him. He te me three or four letters after he went d if he'd had a few remember you by, have come back said Mer- man likes a girl, a petting makes him all ier about her. Don't ou know that?” The point never was to be settled, for at that moment the front door s 1ed and Moms’ quick step was heard in the hall. At the sound, Merry jump- ed up from the table, and her startled eyes leaped to the cle above the sink. Heavens to DBetsy!” she whispered, “it's ten after nine! Moms'll have a fit when she finds me still here.” Moms came to a dead stop in the kitchen doorway when she saw her, and a kind of despair came into her cold gray eves. Her lips tightened into a narrow line, and she hook her head angrily. “Well, your Dad will never be dead while you're Merry Locke! You're j actly like him!” “I've been trying to get him off to work on time for the last twenty-seven ye: and I suppose I'm going to have the same thing with you for the next twenty-seven! Now, what do you mean sitting there killing time when you KNOW you ought to be down babl alive, CASSIE LOCKE at that school this minute? What do you mean by it? Merry drew a long breath, and fluttered her long black lashes up and down demurely. “I'm sorry, Moms,” she said soothingly, “but T just couldn’t wake up this morn- ing. I gues I must have gal- loping spring fever, or some- thing.” Moms’ eyes swept her up and down. “Spring fever, nothing!” she contradicted, “vou've been washing your head, that's what! I wonder- ed what you were doing so long in that bathroom! Now eet your hat and get out! And don’t try to tell me any more lies like that! Spring fever, indeed! You get up when 1 call you, hereafter! And if vou want to wash that head of yours, you wash it at night Do you hear me?” “I'd be deaf if 1 Merry said to herself. “Yes, Moms,” she answer- ed aloud. didn’t,” “MERRY” “If you'd pay more atten- on to your studies and less to yvour s 1 hair, you'd be Moms went on, banging her market basket down on the table. “It took vou five years to get through high school, hoy-crazy thing that you are! But if you don’'t tend to business now, I'm go- ing to yank you out of that school. And there'll be no six ways about it, either! I've spent enough time and money on you, my lady! Now don't answer me back! Right about face, and get out of this ]l(vll 4 j\!“l‘l"' went. She was glad to escape from the kitchen, and the sound of her mother's voice. “What a woman!” she sighed to herself, when sl was out in the quiet of Ches- ter street. The sunshine made a gold- en halo of her fluffy hair. Two or three times on her way to the corner Merry opened her bag to look at herself in the little round mirror that was fastened in the top of it. Finally she took off her | and carried it in her hand. She knew that she was twice as pretty with her hair un- covered as she was when she had a hat on. “T'll leave it off when I go out for my lunch today, too,” she made up her mind. The Man in the Gray Suit has never seen her hatless, of yetter off! course. And if he thought she was worth looking at with that ugly little black straw helmet pulled down over her ears, what would he think of her when he saw her coming along with her hair shining and blowing in the sun like the crowning glory that it was? Merry’s pulse began to quicken at the thought of to- day’s noonday meeting. “Funny thing that I'm so ere about a man I don't know,” she said to herself, as she sat at her desk an hour later and watched the hands of the clock creep on toward the noon hour. “Just think— I've never heard him speak— I don’t even know what his name is, or anything else about him. And yet I can hardly wait to see him every day of my life!” She forgot all about the touch system she was trying to learn. Her hands dropped from the keys of the typewriter, and she stared out at the sky where the sunlit clouds were LOCKE piling themselves ver-white froth. didn't see them. She s picturing | as she would look to the Man in the Gray Suit, when she met him on the street this noon. “What would T do if hc spoke to me?” she wondered. Men hLad spoken to her on the street before. Men she didn’t know. And she had pretended not to hear them, and walked on with her little tip-tilted nose in the air, and her eyes ight ahead of her. But this man “T'll make him to speak to me!” she told herself sudden- 1 stra or she knew, all at once, that he wasn't the kind of man who would ever speak to a girl he didn’t know. There was something in his face, as she remembered i, that told her that. Someone nudged her, start- r her out of her day dream. Twelve o'clock. Going to lunch?” asked the girl who sat next to her. Her name was Nettie Some- thing-or-other, and she was a coarse-looking girl who wore too much make-up and a loud, cheap-looking coat. No—DMerry wasn't going to let the Man in the Gray Suit see her with Nettie! Not this vea “No thanks, Nettie,” she said sweetly, “I'm not going out this noon. I have a head- ache.” Nettie got up. “All right,” she answered. “Wood alco hol.” “Wood alcohol” tie’s slangy way “goodby.” As soon as she was gone, Merry flew to the dressing room. It was empty, and she had the long mirror to herself. She fluffed up her hair, and smiled at her reflected self with her black-lashed green eyes, trying to see herself as she would look to the Man in the Gray Suit. She dallied there so long that it was twenty minutes after twelve when she went out into the crowded street. And just then she saw him coming toward her, along the crowded pavement! (TO BE CONTINUED) Does Merry speak to the Man in Gray? She thinks of her mother’s advice, especially when she sees him in front of her own house that cvening. Reas to- morrow’s {nstallment of ‘“lhe Petter,” was Net- of saying ; i i mir sul: plo mte is @ in] m;